Information Week, December 13, 2010Senator Proposes Cybersecurity Standards
A U.S. senator has introduced a bill that would require the government and the private sector to require minimum cybsersecurity standards for devices that connect to the Internet. Introduced by Sen. Benjamin Cardin, D-Md., the Internet and Cybersecurity Safety Standards Act would require top government officials to determine the cost-effectiveness of requiring Internet service providers and others to develop and enforce cybersecurity safety standards. Cardin unveiled the proposed legislation at the launch of the new Maryland Cybersecurity Center last week.

Cyber Security Market, December 12, 2010Cardin Introduces Bill to Protect Americans from Cybercriminals and Cyberterrorists
U.S. Senator Benjamin L. Cardin (D-MD), Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Terrorism and Homeland Security Subcommittee, has introduced major legislation that would require the government to work with the private sector to propose minimum standards for Internet and cybersecurity safety designed to protect Americans from cybercrime and cyberterrorism. Speaking before hundreds of security, technology and intelligence professionals gathered at the launch the new Maryland Cybersecurity Center today, Senator Cardin outlined the need for such a bill and the malicious nature of cyber threats.

engadget, December 12, 2010World's smallest battery uses a single nanowire, plant-eating virus could improve Li-ion cells tenfold
When it comes to building better batteries, building electrodes with greater surface area is key, and scientists are looking to exotic methods to attract the tiny particles they need. We've already seen graphene and carbon nanotubes soak up those electrons, but the University of Maryland has another idea -- they're using the Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) to generate usable patterns of nanorods on the surface of existing metal electrodes. By simply modifying the germ and letting it do its thing, then coating the surface with a conductive film, they're generating ten times the energy capacity of a standard lithium-ion battery while simultaneously rendering the nasty vegetarian bug inert.

Geek.com, December 10, 2010Plant virus makes lithium ion batteries last 10x longer
How would you like the battery in your smartphone to last ten times longer? It would be great wouldn’t it? No charging for a whole week, talking for hours safe in the knowledge you still have a few days charge left and still juice left to play Angry Birds every lunch time. It’s the kind of battery life we all dream of, but also think is going to take a major technology breakthrough to achieve. Well, it looks like it has already happened and doesn’t require radical new battery tech after all. Researchers at the University of Maryland’s A. James Clark School of Engineering and College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, have discovered a common plant virus allows for large increases in battery life using existing lithium ion batteries. The virus in question is the Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV), which attacks both tobacco and a large range of vegetables.

NewsWise, December 10, 2010Proposed U.S. Legislation and WikiLeaks Attacks Make Case for UMD's Approach to Cybersecurity
At the opening of the University of Maryland's new Cybersecurity Center, the urgency of its mission was underscored by the ongoing WikiLeaks-related cyber attacks and the announcement of new legislation to create and implement national best practices and standards for cybersafety. Speaking at the Maryland Cybersecurity Center (MC2, or "MC-squared") dedication, U.S. Senator Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.) proposed major "cybersafety" legislation. In a keynote address, former U.S. Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell warned of a "catastrophic" cyber event, likely aimed at the nation's "soft underbelly" - the computer networks crucial to banking and commerce, as well as power, utility and transportation grids.

Bisnow, December 10, 2010From Enemy to Malware
Congratulations to the University of Maryland, which yesterday celebrated the opening of the Maryland Cybersecurity Center (call it MC squared to fit it). Speakers came from throughout industry and Sen. Ben Cardin, above, offered a welcome. Working with industry and government, MC2 will promote education, research, and technology development in cybersecurity, adopting a "more than tech" approach to the problem, bringing together experts from engineering and computer science with colleagues fields across campus.

WUSA-TV, Channel 9, December 10, 2010The University of Maryland Launches Cyber Security Center
The University of Maryland, College Park launched the new Maryland Cybersecurity Center (MC2) with a special event on Thursday, Dec. 9 in the Jeong H. Kim Engineering Building Rotunda from 1:30 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. The new center will adopt a "more than tech," interdisciplinary approach to this national challenge, capitalizing on College Park's close proximity to Washington, D.C., and key government agencies engaged in cybersecurity.

Gazette Newspapers, December 10, 2010Bill aims to make information superhighway safer
U.S. Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin announced plans Thursday to introduce a bill to require the private sector to come up with minimum standards for Internet security. Cardin announced the bill at the launch of the University of Maryland's new cybersecurity center.

Fox 5 TV, December 9, 2010U. of Md. Creates New Cybersecurity Center
Officials at the University of Maryland in College Park launched a new "Cybersecurity Center" on Thursday. The new academic concentration will "promote education, research, and technology development" designed to stop internet-based attacks on computers and networks.

The Consumerist, December 9, 2010Virus Could Make Batteries Last 10 Times Longer
"Virus" and "tobacco" are not two words you usually think of in a positive light, but they could be the secret to making batteries last ten times as long. Scientists have discovered that you can coat the virus rods with conductive materials and stuff them into a battery and make it work better. The rods bind to the electrodes and increase their surface area. With a bigger surface area, they hold more of an electrical charge, pumping up the battery life.

TMC News, December 8, 2010The Washington Daybook - General News Events
The University of Maryland an event to launch the new Maryland Cybersecurity Center and discuss "Has the Cyberwar Threat Been Grossly Exaggerated?" PARTICIPANTS: former Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell; University of Maryland President Wallace Loh; Charles Croom, vice president of cyber security solutions at Lockheed Martin Information Systems and Global Services; and Larry Cox, senior vice president and general manager of the Intelligence and Information Solutions Business Unit at the Science Applications International Corporation

Baltimore Examiner, December 8, 2010UMD Cybersecurity Center special launch event set for Dec. 9
The University of Maryland, College Park (UMD) will launch the new Maryland Cybersecurity Center (MC2) with a special event on Thursday, Dec. 9 in the Jeong H. Kim Engineering Building Rotunda from 1:30 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.

R&D Magazine, December 7, 2010Virus troublemaker put to work in breakthrough batteries
Viruses get a bad rap—and rightly so. The ability of a virus to quickly and precisely replicate itself makes it a destructive scourge to animals and plants alike. Now an interdisciplinary team of researchers in the A. James Clark School of Engineering and the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources at the University of Maryland—including Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering assistant professor Chunsheng Wang—is turning the tables, harnessing and exploiting the "self-renewing" and "self-assembling" properties of viruses for a higher purpose: to build a new generation of small, powerful and highly efficient batteries and fuel cells.

PhysOrg.com, December 7, 2010Bad virus put to good use: Breakthrough batteries
Viruses have a bad rep--and rightly so. The ability of a virus to quickly and precisely replicate itself makes it a destructive scourge to animals and plants alike. Now an interdisciplinary team of researchers at the University of Maryland's A. James Clark School of Engineering and College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, brought together by Professor Reza Ghodssi, is turning the tables, harnessing and exploiting the "self-renewing" and "self-assembling" properties of viruses for a higher purpose: to build a new generation of small, powerful and highly efficient batteries and fuel cells.

Oracle, December 7, 2010Harnessing viruses to build a better battery
Ok, now this is cool. You may not think so, but I sure do. I spent a fair amount of time researching battery types and capacities, as well as costs, and to say that it is a dizzying and complicated area is to massively understate the problem. The first virus to be discovered was the Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) back in 1898. It is a rigid, rod-shaped virus that, under an electron microscope, looks like uncooked spaghetti. This widespread virus devastates tobacco, tomatoes, peppers and other plants but in the lab, engineers at the University of Maryland's A. James Clark School of Engineering and College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, have managed to harness and exploit the self-replicating and self-renewing characteristics of TMV to build tiny components for more efficient lithium-ion batteries.

ElectroIQ, December 7, 2010Microbatteries could get boost from nanostructured nickel electrodes
A team of researchers at the University of Maryland is working to harness and exploiting the "self-renewing" and "self-assembling" properties of viruses for a higher purpose: to build a new generation of small, powerful and highly efficient batteries and fuel cells. The rigid, rod-shaped Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) is a well-known and widespread plant virus that devastates tobacco, tomatoes, peppers, and other vegetation. But in the lab, engineers have discovered that they can harness the characteristics of TMV to build components for the lithium ion batteries of the future.

Gizmag, December 7, 2010Harnessing viruses to build a better battery
The first virus to be discovered was the Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) back in 1898. It is a rigid, rod-shaped virus that, under an electron microscope, looks like uncooked spaghetti. This widespread virus devastates tobacco, tomatoes, peppers and other plants but in the lab, engineers at the University of Maryland's A. James Clark School of Engineering and College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, have managed to harness and exploit the self-replicating and self-renewing characteristics of TMV to build tiny components for more efficient lithium-ion batteries.

Institute of Nanotechnology, December 7, 2010Researchers exploit virus to build new generation of batteries and fuel cells
Viruses get a bad rap - and rightly so. The ability of a virus to quickly and precisely replicate itself makes it a destructive scourge to animals and plants alike. Now an interdisciplinary team of researchers in the A. James Clark School of Engineering and the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources at the University of Maryland - including Department of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) graduate student Konstantinos Gerasopoulos - is turning the tables, harnessing and exploiting the "self-renewing" and "self-assembling" properties of viruses for a higher purpose: to build a new generation of small, powerful and highly efficient batteries and fuel cells.

GearLog, December 6, 2010Presenting the Battery-Boosting Virus
I'm not talking about computer viruses here, but the biological kind. A team of researchers at the University of Maryland's A. James Clark School of Engineering and College of Agriculture and Natural Resources (still reading?) has managed to harness and exploit the self-renewing and self-assembling properties of viruses in order to build a new generation of small, powerful, and highly efficient batteries and fuel cells.

CNBC, December 6, 2010Bad Virus Put to Good Use: Breakthrough Batteries
Virally structured nano-electrodes boost energy capacity ten-fold Viruses have a bad rep--and rightly so. The ability of a virus to quickly and precisely replicate itself makes it a destructive scourge to animals and plants alike. Now an interdisciplinary team of researchers at the University of Maryland's A. James Clark School of Engineering and College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, brought together by Professor Reza Ghodssi, is turning the tables, harnessing and exploiting the self-renewing and self-assembling properties of viruses for a higher purpose: to build a new generation of small, powerful and highly efficient batteries and fuel cells.

Azom.com, December 4, 2010UM Research Projects Receive $5.1 Million Funding to Move into Market
With $5.1 million in federal funding, the Maryland Proof of Concept Alliance teams University System of Maryland research institutions and the U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL), in support of a wide array of emerging technologies. The University of Maryland, College Park is administering the program. Eleven grants were announced today at the National Council for Entrepreneurial Technology Transfer conference in Washington, D.C. Among the technologies supported: FlexEl LLC, and its advanced, ultra-thin batteries. The company, now in the Mtech Advancement Program incubator received first- and second-round Alliance grants.

Washington Business Journal, December 3, 2010Cybersecurity: How much is too much?
Guest Comment by Prof. Larry Gordon, Univ. of Maryland
Business and government need to respond decisively to growing concerns about hacking and cyber attacks, but we would do well to remain carefully analytic in answering the big question: Are we spending enough as a nation on cybersecurity?

Baltimore Magazine, December, 2010It’s a Long Way to the Top
Phil Wiser was a senior at Eastern Vo-Tech and something of a science geek in 1984. But Wiser wasn’t your typical nerd, with his long hair and confident swagger. In fact, he was class president and bassist in Child’s Play, a popular metal band that played local clubs. It’s a rare trait, being the nerd and the cool kid, but it’s a combination that’s served Wiser well and distinguished him from his peers. Science increasingly fascinated Wiser, and he decided to pursue electrical engineering, “although at the time, I didn’t really know what that meant,” he says. But he knew enough to major in it at the University of Maryland College Park. The über-geek graduated summa cum laude in 1990 with a 4.0 GPA and earned himself a free ride to grad school at Stanford. Wiser and college buddy and business partner Buno Pati recently returned from Malaysia, where they met with the Prime Minister and partnered in a deal for Sezmi to be the premium TV service for the entire country.

Washington Post, November 15, 2010Northrop joins other companies in teaming up with universities on cybersecurity research
The University of Maryland at College Park, too, has paired up with industry partners, including Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin and McLean-based Science Applications International Corp. This summer, Lockheed committed to invest a minimum of $1 million per year for three years as part of a strategic agreement with the university. "I think we've done a good job in the past in terms of government-university partnerships," said Patrick O'Shea, chair of the University of Maryland at College Park's electrical and computer engineering department. "We need to do a better job in the government-industry arena." O'Shea said a partnership is useful to both sides; industry gets the research infrastructure and the young potential employees it needs while universities find a source of funding and help their students identify career paths. "My phone is ringing off the hook" from companies that want to partner with the university, O'Shea said.

National Science Foundation, November 9, 2010President Names Nation's Top Early Career Scientists and Engineers
President Barack Obama has announced the names of 85 women and men who will receive the United States government's highest honor for scientists and engineers in the early stages of their independent research careers--the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). Edo Waks of the University of Maryland, College Park, for advancing the frontiers of knowledge in coherent interactions between photons and quantum dots using photonic crystals, and for engaging in education and outreach activities, including in local schools in Maryland.

EurekAlert, November 9, 2010Waks receives Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers
Edo Waks of the University of Maryland (UMD) is among 85 scientists and engineers nationally to receive this year's Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). The PECASE Award is the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on outstanding scientists and engineers beginning their independent careers. Waks is an assistant professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at UMD. He will receive PECASE research funds through the National Science Foundation to pursue topics in nanophotonics. By creating artificial atoms known as quantum dots, Waks studies ways to generate and manipulate quantum states of light integrated with semiconductor electronics technology.

Washington Post, November 7, 2010Gear-head nirvana: U-Md. space center is voted one of nation's 'most awesome college labs'
For gear-heads, childhood Lego fanatics and devoted "Star Trek" fans turned college students, the University of Maryland's Space Systems Lab is nirvana. It was recently voted one of the top five most "awesome college labs" by Popular Science magazine, and students often go on to work for NASA or companies that develop space exploration products. "When I first toured the lab, it seemed like something between a candy store and Disneyland for me," said Ellsberry, who is working toward a master's degree in aerospace engineering. "My eyes were huge." In the lab, graduate student projects often mix mechanical and electrical engineering with software design, robotics and simulation technology in two sites on campus.

WhiteHouse.gov, November 5, 2010President Honors Outstanding Early-Career Scientists
President Obama today named 85 researchers as recipients of the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers, the highest honor bestowed by the United States government on science and engineering professionals in the early stages of their independent research careers. This year’s recipients include Edo Waks of the University of Maryland, College Park.

Washington Technology, November 1, 2010SAIC, University of Md. to support cybersecurity initiatives
SAIC will coordinate and share cyber-related research between the UMD Cybersecurity Center in College Park, Md., and SAIC’s Cyber Innovation Center in Columbia, Md., according to a company announcement released today. The idea behind the partnership is “to leverage each center’s resources, alliances and diverse perspectives to build innovative approaches to shared challenges,” the announcement states.

InfoSecurity, November 1, 2010SAIC, University of Maryland link cybersecurity centers
Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC), a McLean, Va.-based consulting firm, has teamed with the University of Maryland to promote cybersecurity education, research, and technology development. The organizations will coordinate the work of their two Maryland-based cybersecurity research centers: the University of Maryland’s Cybersecurity Center in College Park and SAIC’s Cyber Innovation Center in Columbia.

WYPR's Maryland Morning, October 25, 2010Securing Our Cybersecurity
Maryland’s universities and community colleges are increasing their academic focus on cybersecurity, and we want to understand what students need to know in this growing field, and what Maryland colleges are offering them. Today, Sheilah talks with ... Patrick O’Shea, Professor and Chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Maryland’s A. James Clark School of Engineering.

Science News, October 23, 2010Cosmic dioramas metamaterials may offer windows into other worlds
Now Igor Smolyaninov of the University of Maryland in College Park has developed additional “strange schemes,” as he calls them. Metamaterials, it turns out, can serve as broader cosmic dio­ramas, manipulating light to replicate the shape of spacetime. “In metamaterials, we have a situation in which we have optical spacetime,” Smolyaninov says. “And we can engineer the properties of spacetime.”

Mechanical Engineering, October 2010Fishing for Robots
For most of the past decade, University of Maryland alumnus Dr. Naomi Leonard, the Edwin Wilsey Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Princeton University, has studied how to apply the rules underlying cooperative animal group behavior to control theory. Her work on cooperative robots helped earn her a MacArthur Foundation “genius grant” in 2004. According to Leonard, animal groups as diverse as schools of fish, flocks of birds, and herds of zebras synchronize their movements to find the densest source of food, reduce the stress of migration, and minimize predation. They do this consistently, despite uncertainty in their decisions and noise in the form of environmental interferences.

Federal News Radio, October 22, 2010Cybersecurity education goes holistic: Interview with Patrick O'Shea
The University of Maryland is launching a new center to encourage public-private partnerships on cybersecurity. MC-squared will bring together experts from engineering, computer science, business, public policy and other fields. They'll develop new education and research programs. Patrick O'Shea, center co-director, says it will help connect the dots in the capital region's burgeoning federal and private cyber sector.

Maryland Daily Record, October 20, 2010Cybersecurity Branding
On Tuesday, the University of Maryland launched the Maryland Cybersecurity Center at its flagship College Park campus to connect the region’s federal and private sector cyber warriors.

Baltimore Examiner, October 20, 2010New Cybersecurity Center planned for Univ. of MD
The University of Maryland is launching a new cybersecurity initiative that aims to stimulate public-private partnerships and address national vulnerabilities, including those facing industry. The idea is to help "connect the dots" in the region's fast growing federal and private cyber sector.

Federal News Radio, October 20, 2010New cyber security center fosters partnerships
The University of Maryland is launching the new Maryland Cybersecurity Center. They call it MC-squared. The school wants to bring together experts from engineering and computer science, along with information sciences, business, public policy, social sciences and economics. They'll develop new education and research programs.

Scientific Computing, October 20, 2010New UMD Cybersecurity Center aims at public-private partnerships
The university's proximity to the nation's capital and close interactions with key federal agencies make College Park a unique place for cybersecurity education, research and technology development. Maryland leads the nation in information technology jobs, while more than half of the nation's internet traffic passes through the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.

Flight International, September 21, 2010RoboSeed: Mining the simplicity of the samara
A biologically inspired graduate school project taken on by a University of Maryland student could become a money-making commercial venture for the doctoral aerospace engineering candidate later this year.

Prince George's Sentinel, September 15, 2010UMD Robotics Day attracts large turnout
From robots designed to mimic the movements of animals to robots made for space exploration to micro robotics that will be able to diagnose malignant cells in the human body before there are physical systems, Robotics Day at the University of Maryland featured something for everyone. The free event held Sept. 10 introduced the new Maryland Robotics Center and demonstrated current robotics research at the University of Maryland.

The Wall Street Journal, September 13, 2010The Top 25 Recruiter Picks
This list includes the top 25 schools whose graduates were the top-rated by recruiters. University of Maryland ranked 3rd in the nation for Engineering, and 8th in the nation overall.

WUSA Channel 9 TV, September 10, 2010Robot Invasion at University of Maryland
Imagine robots that drive your car, rescue people in the middle of a hurricane, or surge through your bloodstream in search of disease. Scientists are working on all those things at the University of Maryland Robotics Labs.Video | Text

Summer 2010

Discover Magazine, August 27, 2010Virus-Powered Rechargeable Clothing Could be Coming to a Store Near You
Another research group led by James Culver from the University of Maryland announced that it had also made the parts for a lithium-ion battery by using the tobacco mosaic virus (TMV), which infects tobacco plants. In a study published this month, he and his colleagues demonstrated that their virus-built silicon anode had roughly 10 times the capacity of current graphite anodes. One advantage of Culver’s design is that the batteries could eventually be grown (quite literally) in the field by farmers—though that is at least several years away. And while these batteries will initially be developed for the military to lighten soldiers’ loads on the battlefield, there is no reason why they couldn’t eventually make their way into your next shirt or pair of shoes. Perfect for when that invisible dress goes out of style.

MSNBC Discovery News, August 27, 2010Virus-Built Wearable Batteries Could Power Military
Batteries, built by viruses, could someday be sprayed onto military uniforms as wearable power sources. Teams of researchers, one from MIT, one from the University of Maryland, have used two different viruses to create the cathode and anode for a lithium ion battery. The MIT and Maryland scientists used two viruses that are harmless to humans. The MIT scientists used M13, a virus that infects bacteria. The Maryland scientists used the tobacco mosaic virus (TMV), a common pathogen of tobacco plants. The viral hosts might be different, but the shapes of each virus are similar; long, thin and cylindrical. The MIT research is green in name, but the University of Maryland research could literally be green. "For our purposes now, we do everything with the virus in growth chambers in the lab," said Culver. "But growing them in the field, that's the whole idea. That's something that would be cheap and relatively easy to do."

Riverside Park University Park Patch, August 27, 2010Documentary on University Park Solar Energy Project Debuts
A documentary featuring the story of how the University Park Church of the Brethren got a solar panel roof debuted Saturday night for residents and will now be available online on YouTube. About 40 people attended a viewing of the documentary Saturday evening at the Church of the Brethren. The documentary was produced by sophomore Daniel Silversmith, a major in electrical engineering at the University of Maryland. University Park Community Solar LLC, a company consisting of about 35 investors, contributed $130,000 to pay for the installation of the panels on the church in May.

Nanowerk, August 24, 2010Virus-enabled fabrication of stable silicon anodes for lithium-ion batteries
Chunseng Wang, an assistant professor in the Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Maryland, notes that silicon nanowires and nanotubes have been used to produce stable silicon anodes. The architecture of these nanowires and tubes allows for a greater level of expansion to accommodate the volume changes that accompany silicon charge and discharge cycles. In recent work ("Virus-Enabled Silicon Anode for Lithium-Ion Batteries"), Wang, together with two other principal investigators (James Culver and Reza Ghodssi) and their teams (with PhD students Konstantions Gerasopoulos in Ghodssi's group and Xilin Chen in Wang's group) have used the macromolecular structure of self-assembled Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) as templates to fabricate three-dimensional current collectors for high power and high energy density Li-ion batteries.

Washington Post, August 18, 2010U-Md. names Iowa provost Wallace D. Loh as next president
The University of Maryland community Tuesday rallied behind the selection of University of Iowa administrator Wallace D. Loh as its next president, embracing his immigrant roots and circuitous career path as welcome additions to a university striving for global reach. Loh, 65, was announced Tuesday morning as successor to C.D. Mote Jr., who is retiring after 12 years as president of Maryland's flagship state university. The Iowa provost starts his new job Nov. 1, at a salary of $450,000. Nariman Farvardin, Mote's provost in College Park, will serve as interim president until Loh arrives.

Baltimore Sun, August 16, 2010UM engineer builds bridge sensors to give early warnings
The device that Mehdi Kalantari hopes will revolutionize monitoring of the structural integrity of bridges around the world is about as small and flat as a credit card and is powered by the sun, by ambient light or even by stray radio waves it can pick out of the atmosphere.

Washington Post, August 2, 2010With little business experience, professor shows promise in developing tech firm
Carol Espy-Wilson holds three degrees from some of the nation's most elite universities, none of them in business. An electrical engineer by training and University of Maryland professor by occupation, Espy-Wilson took on a new role last fall: founder and chief executive of a company that markets a technology she developed to block out background noises on cellphones.

TradingMarkets.com, June 4, 2010University of Maryland and Lockheed Martin Launch Strategic Relationship
The University of Maryland and Lockheed Martin Corporation (http://www.lockheedmartin.com/) opened a major new chapter in their more than 60-year history today when Dr. C. D. Mote, Jr (http://www.president.umd.edu/about/bio.cfm), President of the University, and Dr. Ray O Johnson (http://www.eng.umd.edu/whitingturner/archive/johnson.html), Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of Lockheed Martin, agreed to create a unique, strategic relationship between the two institutions.

News Channel 8, June 4, 2010Univ. of Maryland, Lockheed Announce New Partnership
University of Maryland and Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin announced plans for a strategic partnership that will help launch more research and collaborative programs. The three-year, three-million-dollar commitment will mean more opportunities for both institutions.

Gazette.Net, June 1, 2010Executives warm to O'Malley's venture capital initiative
Business executives reacted positively to a new proposed private-public partnership designed to boost venture capital investment in Maryland, though some are expressing more caution.The program, called InvestMaryland, sounds "very exciting" and will be useful to companies under the Maryland Technology Enterprise Institute, said Dean Chang, director of Mtech's ventures and education programs. The institute is a unit of the A. James Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park, and includes a technology business incubator.

MIT Technology Review, May 14, 2010How To Build a Multiverse
Metamaterials are substances in which physicists have fiddled with a material's ability to support electric and magnetic fields. They can be designed to steer electromagnetic waves around, over and behind objects to create invisibility cloaks that hide objects. Physicists have already investigated black holes that suck light in but won't let it out and wormholes that connect different regions of electromagnetic space. Today, Igor Smolyaninov at the University of Maryland, College Park says that the analogy with spacetime can be taken much further. He says it is possible to create metamaterials that are analogous to various kinds of spaces dreamt up by cosmologists to explain aspects of the Universe. It turns out, says Smolyaninov, that it is possible to create metamaterials with electromagnetic spaces in which some dimensions are compactified. He says it is even possible to create substances in which the spaces vary from region to region, so a space with 2 ordinary and 2 compactified dimensions, could be adjacent to a space with just 2 ordinary dimensions and also connected to a 2d space with 1 compactified dimension and so on. The wormholes that make transitions between these regions would be especially interesting. It ought to be possible to observe the birth of photons in these regions and there is even a sense in which the transition could represent the birth of a new universe.'A similar topological transition may have given birth to our own Universe,' says Smolyaninov.

Boston Globe, May 14, 2010Teams compete for $200,000 in MIT contest
Enertaq, formed by two students from the University of Maryland, was one of five finalist teams in MIT’s third Clean Energy Entrepreneurship competition. Enertaq created a device that tracks electrical demands of large buildings and adjusts the supply accordingly.

Village Voice, April 13, 2010Raw Foodist's Father Bakes Latvian-Style Rye Bread in Brooklyn
John Melngailis, an engineering professor at the University of Maryland (and the father of Sarma Melngailis of Pure Food & Wine), missed the dense, dark, sourdough rye bread he ate growing up in Latvia. When he discovered he could order loaves online directly from the Latvian capital of Riga, he reconnected with the bread of his childhood. This past fall, a number of New York Fairway and Whole Foods stores began carrying Melngailis's Black Rooster bread, selling the dark, oblong loaves for $5.99 each (they may also be purchased on the company website).

Diamondback Online, April 9, 2010Helping Diseases Disappear
One year ago, electrical and computer engineering professor Chris Davis was making things disappear. Now, he’s using the same technology to help detect cancer or heart disease in DNA.

Calgary Herald, March 3, 2010Professional Engineers on Frontlines of Fight Against Cancer
Professional Engineer (and ECE alumnus) Dr. Jie Chen uses nanotechnology to make cancer treatments more effective, with less damage to healthy tissue in the body... At the National Institute of Nanotechnology (NINT), located at the University of Alberta, Chen's team is using scintigraphic glucose-capped gold nanoparticles to target cancer cells and then destroy them.

The Boston Globe, February 22, 2010The Sound of Science
"Shihab Shamma, a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Maryland who studies the brain’s auditory system, said he is skeptical of Horowitz’s idea about specific sound frequencies affecting certain parts of the brain. 'We are very primitive in our knowledge about the brain,’ he said. 'I wish we were that knowledgeable, that we could say, ‘This area [of the brain] responds to 15 hertz and this responds to 25 hertz,’ but we aren’t.’ But that doesn’t mean the effects Horowitz says he has achieved aren’t real, Shamma added. 'Sound really does go everywhere in the brain, and the brain is one giant unified organism,’ he said. 'So it’s quite believable that you can use one modality to excite everything else.’"

Washington Post, February 16, 2010University of Maryland President C.D. Mote to Step Down in August
C.D. Mote Jr., who has led the University of Maryland on a 12-year journey into the top tier of public universities, will resign in August, he said Monday, confident that "the place is in good shape" and that it is time for someone else to take charge.

Science Daily, February 10, 2010Seeing the Brain Hear Reveals Surprises About How Sound Is Processed
New research shows our brains are a lot more chaotic than previously thought, and that this might be a good thing. Neurobiologists at the University of Maryland have discovered information about how the brain processes sound that challenges previous understandings of the auditory cortex that suggested an organization based on precise neuronal maps. "These results may rewrite our classical views of how cortical circuits are organized and what functions they serve," suggests Dr. Shihab Shamma, whose previous research has involved mapping responses in the auditory cortex using traditional microelectrodes.

CNN Money, February 8, 2010NVIDIA Names University of Maryland a CUDA Center of Excellence
NVIDIA Corp. announced today that it has recognized the University of Maryland as a CUDA Center of Excellence, placing it in an elite grouping of 9 other universities and research organizations worldwide. The university was selected for its pioneering use of GPU computing and the CUDA programming model across research and teaching efforts within multiple science and engineering departments.

One India, February 2, 2010Imaging Techniques Reveal New Picture of Sound Processing
Researchers from the University of Maryland have come up with a surprising picture of neuronal activity after using advanced imaging techniques to see how the brain processes sound. The study was conducted by Patrick Kanold, Assistant Professor of Biology, Shihab Shamma, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Institute for Systems Research (ISR), and Sharba Bandyopadhyay, Assistant Research Scientist (ISR).

New American Media, January 25, 2010A Letter from Haiti: A Dream Unfulfilled
"I feel it is my duty to honor the fallen by telling you of the Haiti you seldom hear of. As we desperately and heroically tear through the rubble with our bare hands to free our fellow citizens, as we hopelessly seek medical care for the injured, we lament not only the dead but we also weep for the Haitian Dream." Commentary by Marc Péralte Dandin (B.S., EE, '04), current Ph. D. degree in Bioengineering at the University of Maryland.

Winter 2009-10

Global Telecoms Business, January 15, 2010Interview: Jeong Kim of Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs
How, though, does the research institution justify its work to Alcatel-Lucent and its hard-pressed shareholders? “You create intellectual property,” says Kim. The licence revenue on Bell Labs inventions “easily justifies” the funding that he and his colleagues receive, he says. The purpose of Bell Labs today — and in the past — is “disruptive technology for new markets," he says. We like surprises,” says Kim. “Innovation comes from the left field, because you’ve not thought about it. Otherwise people have thought about it, and then it is incremental, and that’s engineering.”

The Gov Monitor, January 12, 2010Maryland Highlights Plan To Be U.S. Epicenter For Cyber Security
Developed with guidance from more than 50 public and private sector information technology and security experts, CyberMaryland highlights the State’s key role in supporting President Barack Obama’s national cyber initiative and is the first comprehensive inventory of any State’s cyber security assets. Over the last year, Maryland has led the nation in the creation of computer systems design jobs, growing by 6.6 percent. The State is also a leader in research and development, ranking first in federal R & D obligations per capita, and second in federal R & D investment at $12.2 billion. Maryland is home to several of the nation’s top research universities, including Johns Hopkins and University of Maryland, College Park, the University of Maryland, Baltimore and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, which combined conduct nearly $1 billion in funded research annually.

Federal News Radio, January 11, 2010UM Designated U.S. Intel 'Center of Excellence' - First Ever in Md.
The University of Maryland has been designated an Intelligence Community "Center of Academic Excellence" by the U.S. government - the first higher education institution in the state to be selected for the program, and one of only 14 universities participating nationwide. The program provides funding to enhance Maryland's ability to prepare students for government service and leadership positions in the Intelligence Community: $300,000 dollars annually for up to five years. The designation further aligns Maryland's flagship research university with the state's cyber security strategic plan expected to be announced today by Governor Martin O'Malley. As a Center of Academic Excellence, the University of Maryland will fortify instruction and create new educational opportunities and internships in a broad range of areas, from information and cyber security to foreign language acquisition, cross-cultural studies, mathematics, physical sciences and engineering.

New Scientist, January 8, 2010How to make a liquid invisibility cloak
When J. K. Rowling described Harry Potter's invisibility cloak as "fluid and silvery", she probably wasn't thinking specifically about silver-plated nanoparticles suspended in water. But a team of theorists believe that using such a set-up would make the first soft, tunable metamaterial – the "active ingredient" in an invisibility device. "The simulations look convincing," says Igor Smolyaninov of the University of Maryland in College Park, but he stresses that the set-up is still only theoretical.

IEEE Scanner, January 2010Autonomous Robots Score Points for Distance, Speed
The second annual Autonomous Robot Speedway Competition was held at the University of Maryland College Park campus on Saturday, October 24. The event was jointly sponsored
by the Washington and Northern Virginia Chapter of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS) and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE). The 10 teams that competed were from the Robotics@Maryland student organization and Prof. Gil Blankenship’s 408I Autonomous Robotics Capstone Design Course. This systems engineering exercise provided students engaged in the competition with an opportunity to practice an integrated, interdisciplinary approach to solving problems and optimizing performance.

Processor, January 1, 2010What’s In Store For Multicore?
Multicore processors represent a major challenge to programmers, who must move their mindset from single threads to multiple threads to utilize all of a chip’s potential horsepower. According to Uzi Vishkin, a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Maryland and a pioneer in parallel computing, this process depends on the software spiral, in which hardware improvements lead to software improvements, which in turn lead back to hardware improvements. However, he says that multicore processors have essentially broken the software spiral. “The real challenge for multicore processor vendors is to re-establish a new software spiral for parallel computing,” he says. “Until then, multicore vendors must rely on application software developers to make the case to customers that their new multicores make sense for them. The key question that application software vendors—that employ these developers—ask is whether it makes sense for them to invest now in developing new software for current multicore.” Vishkin says he believes that the time is not yet ripe for heavy investment by software vendors. However, features such as hardware hooks and other potential advances in the field could help decrease the cost of developing applications for multicore processors in the future.